OTRC: 'Harry Potter'-inspired film in the works with J.K. Rowling

Warner Bros. announced on Thursday, Sept. 12, that Rowling will write the screenplay for "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them." The project marks Rowling's screenwriting debut. The film will be the first in a new series and it is based on Harry Potter's Hogwarts textbook of the same name. The movie will focus on the book's fictitious author Newt Scamander.

"It all started when Warner Bros. came to me with the suggestion of turning 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them' into a film," Rowling explained in a statement featured on her official Facebook page. "I thought it was a fun idea, but the idea of seeing Newt Scamander, the supposed author of 'Fantastic Beasts', realized by another writer was difficult."

"Having lived for so long in my fictional universe, I feel very protective of it and I already knew a lot about Newt," she added. "As hard-core Harry Potter fans will know, I liked him so much that I even married his grandson, Rolf, to one of my favorite characters from the Harry Potter series, Luna Lovegood."

"Although it will be set in the worldwide community of witches and wizards where I was so happy for seventeen years, 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them' is neither a prequel nor a sequel to the Harry Potter series, but an extension of the wizarding world," Rowling later said in the statement. "The laws and customs of the hidden magical society will be familiar to anyone who has read the Harry Potter books or seen the films, but Newt's story will start in New York, seventy years before Harry's gets underway."

After she finished her work on the "Harry Potter" series, Rowling wrote the adult novel "The Casual Vacancy." She also wrote the detective thriller "The Cuckoo's Calling" under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.